Game Writing: Storytelling through Video Game Design
What you'll learn
- Write and design games.
- Understand what’s unique about writing for games.
- How to create in-depth gameworlds.
- What contributes to a memorable narrative.
- How story is conveyed through games.
- How to develop your idea from conception through to story.
Requirements
- Your preferred writing tools!
- A desire to entertain through story and games.
- Willingness to explore ideas and exercise your imagination!
Description
The course will help you to design and write your own games - learn how to generate and develop your ideas, how to structure a story-rich game, and how creating a narrative and storyworld will enhance all games, even those that are not story based!
Learn to create a compelling storyworld for your video game by developing ideas, characters and a memorable narrative. You’ll be given knowledge and tasks to cement and practice what you’ve learned.
Create Immersive Storyworlds
Understand how writing for games differs from writing for other media.
Learn which aspects of a game contribute to a memorable narrative.
Discover how story is conveyed through games.
Practice developing an idea from start to end.
Storytelling: Arguably the Most Important Aspect of Game Design.
Games that are “story-rich” have a deep story to uncover as you play the game, and have an extra dimension compared to other forms of media in that the player themselves is a part of that story.
The storyworld makes up so much of a game and it is communicated in many different ways. It’s everything from the artwork and the audio design to the dialogue between characters and the player themselves. As a game designer or a game writer, you are responsible for shaping this world and conveying it to the player.
Content Overview
This course aims to help you develop your skills as a designer of games. We’ll talk about what makes games a unique form of media, how to tell good stories, how to generate ideas, and how story can be conveyed through games (spoiler: there are LOTS of different ways!). These are the core sections of the course, and we’ll be adding bonus sections soon.
Story structure will be the first bonus (coming soon!) and each new section will provide new ways to improve your game design techniques.
Each of the course videos is made using the Unity game engine, and we communicate information within this game setting.
As well as video lectures, this course contains ‘Reflection’ moments where we ask you to pause and think about what your answers to specific questions would be, “Missions” where we ask you to do some writing (and then show you our own example), and worksheets to guide your ideas.
We also encourage you to share your ideas and give feedback to others.
Once you complete this course, you’ll be able to design story-rich games using various different methods to convey your ideas.
Who this course is for:
- Game designers and Indie game developers wanting to integrate captivating story in their own games.
- Aspiring and professional writers looking to develop stories in the context of games.
- Game enthusiasts who are curious about storytelling in games.
Featured review
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Course content
- Preview02:31
- Preview03:37
- 02:13Game Mechanics
- 03:13Why Story is Important I
- 02:52Why Story is Important II
Instructors
- 4.2 Instructor Rating
- 761 Reviews
- 5,340 Students
- 3 Courses
I'm Jenny, a freelance and indie game developer with over 6 years of professional programming experience. I have a Masters degree in Physics with Astrophysics and a PhD in Quantum Information.
I've released a number of games and enjoy teaching and sharing the knowledge I've gained. I've worked with General Interactive Co. to code and design a winemaking tycoon game called Terroir and a mystery/adventure/management game called Chinatown Detective Agency. I'm also making Cultivate: Before Time, a farming meets mystery game with time travel and dinosaurs!
My Udemy courses are aimed at those learning game development - whether that's coding or game design.
- 4.1 Instructor Rating
- 520 Reviews
- 3,428 Students
- 1 Course
I'm Gwen, a freelance writer with experience writing across various formats, including games, film, VR and novels. My mission is to write high quality and original entertainment that explores interesting points of view with depth.
I'm currently working as a writer on a game project with General Interactive Co., as well as writing a short film for VR, and writing a novel thanks to Arts Council England funding.
Some of my writing successes include:
…placing in the semi-finals of the prestigious Academy Nicholl Fellowship (twice);
…placing in the finals of the excellent Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition;
...been long-listed for the Penguin Random House WriteNow scheme;
...achieving ACE funding.